The present invention relates to a sunshade device which is mounted in an inner opening of a vehicular roof.
A sunshade device is known, for example, by Japanese Patent No. 3115646. This sunshade device comprises: a plurality of sunshade panels mounted to be freely opened/closed in an inner opening of a roof of a vehicle along the longitudinal direction of the vehicle so that in a closed state they are arranged in line along the longitudinal direction of the vehicle; front and rear sliders provided in the side surfaces of each sunshade panel; guide rails for guiding the linear sliding movement of the front and rear sliders; a drive source connected to the forefront sunshade panel; and a connecting mechanism for detachably connecting adjacent two sunshade panels. The sunshade panels are stacked one on top of another at the rear part of the guide rails.
In this Japanese Patent No. 3115646, an engagement portion provided on a front-side sunshade panel and a guide portion urge downward a pressed-down guide portion formed on a rear-side sunshade panel, to thereby superpose and retract the front-side sunshade panel on top of the rear-side sunshade panel.
Japanese Laid-open Patent Application No. 8-118959 also discloses a mechanism for stacking a plurality of sunshade panels one on top of another. Referring to the figures of this application, a front-side guide shaft 29 and a rear-side guide shaft 30 provided on a rear slide sunshade 18 are slid down to a front-side branch 40 and a rear-side branch 41, respectively, extending diagonally and downward from the guide rail 38, so that the rear slide sunshade 18 is positioned in a lower position.
Further, Japanese Laid-open Patent Application No. 11-348567 also discloses a similar guide link mechanism in a slide lifter-type roof structure for vehicles. This slide lifter-type roof structure includes slide covers corresponding to the sunshade panels, and a guide pin corresponding to the guide shaft, which passes through a guide slit corresponding to the guide rail.
On the contrary to the above construction disclosed in Japanese Patent No. 3115646 wherein the rear-side sunshade panel is pressed down and retracted, another construction may be proposed to lift up the rear-side sunshade panel while the front-side sunshade panel is positioned and superposed below the rear-side sunshade panel. Such a construction is advantageous because the height space between the guide rails and the roof outside panel of the vehicle can be used as a retracting space for sunshade panels so that the height of the interior space at the rear side of the cabin can be assured as large as possible.
The present invention seeks to provide a sunshade device for a vehicle, in which the rear-side sunshade panel is lifted up so that the front-side sunshade panel moves under the rear-side sunshade panel to thereby superpose and retract the rear-side sunshade panel on top of the front-side sunshade panel, and which is simple in structure and excels in reduction in manufacturing cost.